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Monday, December 28, 2009

The thought crossed my mind. Despite waking up late today, I accomplished a lot. However, some part of my brain wanted me to accomplish one thing more.

The circumstances were as ideal as they ever could be for this sort of activity. Before you call me stupid or reckless, understand that this impulse, which I have named in the title of this post, struck while I drove a completely deserted and very straight stretch of private road. The only unnatural source of light came from my car. If another car had been coming, I would have seen its lights a half-mile away — unless, of course, it too had had its lights off, in which case the resulting accident would have been just punishment, baffling and statistically improbable though it might have been. And I was only inclined to let the car creep forward slowly — so that the speedometer wouldn’t even register any motion, so that turtles and rocks would have still had time to roll out of my vehicle’s way, so that I could have easily just not been moving at all. So, yes, I suppose this feat would have indeed been stupid and reckless, but little more so than chewing too quickly, given the circumstances.

I can’t explain why my brain had this impulse. Perhaps it manifested simply because, despite the aforementioned relative safety, driving with my lights off on a wet road at night would have satisfied a deep, unnurtured need for danger, even if only tiny, cough drop-sized danger. (“One danger unit, please.”) Or maybe my brain inexplicably processed how this set of circumstances might never be allotted to me again — not only with the fresh rain on the road but also with the sudden appearance of a nearly full moon. (“Brain, aren’t there more useful calculations you should be making?”) Or maybe instead the impulse resulted from my aesthetic-minded ridges, which noted that the slick road would reflect the moon in a way I’d never seen before and may never again. It would look like driving on a river. Or on glass. Or on silver. Or, because the moon was not visible within the frame of my windshield, like the road itself was the only source of light in the world. (“…” (There would be no words, I’m sure.))

3 comments:

I may have done this on a few occasions. Scared the hell out of one of my firend's little brother's, but as that occasion was not just any full moon but harvest moon, we weren't actually in any danger.